LG DP781 8 in. Portable DVD Player

A few years ago, a family member told me that I was absolutely insane to consider a road trip without a portable DVD player to entertain my daughter. So, we ended up buying our first portable DVD player at Best Buy. The salesman there told us that there was not exactly a brand that was better than the others, particularly because it was going to be used primarily by a toddler. He recommended we pick one we liked and get Best Buy's extended warranty for $30, which would replace the DVD player within two years if it broke. At the time, portable DVD players were a pretty unstable technology and he guaranteed us no player would last the full two years. He was right. I am getting ready to return our fourth portable DVD player in as many years: the LG DP781.

Features
The LG DP781 has an eight inch screen and can play all kinds of DVDs and CDs. Aside from the player itself, purchasing the LG DP781 gets you an AC adaptor (which is huge and heavy), vehicle adaptor and a credit card-sized remote control.

The player is kind of heavy, weighing nearly two pounds, and the battery sticks out of the back of the machine like a little caboose. All of your play, stop, forward and backward buttons are on the outer bottom part of the player, much like on a laptop computer. In addition, there are menu, setup, display and color/contrast indentations on the base of the player. These are not actually buttons, but an ultra-sensitive touchpad.

The "cool" factor of the LG DP781 is in the swivel screen function. You can turn the screen around, lay it flat, flip the picture, arrange it however you like. Honestly, I find this unnecessary, and I think it might have contributed to the reason this player only lasted three months in our house.

Quality of the LG DP781
At first, the LG DP781 seemed like a great machine. We took it on a few long road trips and there was no problem. For the most part, my then-four year old daughter just held it on her lap while we were driving, using the vehicle adaptor for power. I liked that it was simple enough that she could get everything started up without my helping her. Occasionally she had a couple of issues where she accidentally bumped the 'flip screen' button, and it would take a couple of minutes to turn the picture back to "right side up," but otherwise the picture and volume were both nice and clear.

According to LG, the DP781 will play for up to five and a half hours between charges, but I did not find that to be the case. I would say three hours was about the norm for us.

My problem with the DP781 began about three months after we got it. I know it got dropped about three feet once by my two year old, but it worked fine afterwards and other than that, we gave that machine a pretty good life. However, after three months of playing a movie a day, I got a panicky cry from my daughter one afternoon. Now, whenever you put a movie in, the screen looks okay for about two minutes, and then it freezes and leaves the picture a green silhouette of what was shown pre-freeze. You can still hear the entire movie, but all you see is that frozen green silhouette.

Final Thoughts
I liked the LG DP781 better than the Insignia models we had previously tried, but it still only lasted us three months. I know absolutely nothing about electronics, but I think all the screen swiveling has something to do with our problem. Our problems with all of the other DVD players that have failed us were located in the base of the machines, and with the LG DP781, our only problem was with the picture. Whatever the reason, I am just glad that we keep spending $30 to keep that two year extended warranty at Best Buy. My search for a portable and durable DVD player must go on.


Update, 1/4/10: I think the search has ended. The Sony DVP-FX730 is the winner!